The Garment Worker by Judith Weller

Throughout New York City, permanent monuments grace sidewalks, street corners, and parks. Many of those monuments commemorate important events, influential people, and well-known heroes. Some, however, stand in tribute to everyday New Yorkers. Judith Weller’s “The Garment Worker” is one such statue, depicting a man in a yarmulke working at an old-fashioned sewing machine. Weller, originally from Israel, based the figure on memories of her father, a machine operator in the garment industry, similarly bent over a sewing machine hard at work. Jewish immigrants like the man depicted in the statue have a long and storied history in New York, with the first wave of them arriving as early as the 1650s. A few centuries later, from about the 1880s to the 1920s, the Jewish population in New York City boomed, growing by nearly 1 million in just a few decades. Many of these new arrivals ended up working in New York City’s prosperous garment industry, at one point making up a large majority of the labor force in that field. “The Garment Worker” sits at his table on 7th Avenue, a larger-than-life homage to the Jewish garment workers who made up “the backbone of Jewish life in New York at the turn of the century,” and the immigrants who shaped New York City.

Ascending the Mountain by Susan Stair

At the center of Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park is a small, rocky mountain covered with trees. It wasn’t always so verdant, though. Less than 100 years ago, the mountain was mostly bare rock, but over time, trees that were planted at the beginning of the twentieth century grew through the solid Manhattan Schist. Today, the entire park is shaded with trees. “Ascending the Mountain” is a three-part installation by artist Susan Stair, created as a tribute to this urban forest and the trees that make it up. The first part of the work, called “Roots in Rock,” is at the bottom of the mountain, visible from the first step of the staircase that leads to the top. You can look through the artwork, you can see the actual roots of the trees anchored in the rocky ground. The next part of the work, “Growing Powerhouse,” is a bit higher up on the winding stairs. This piece “illustrates the trees’ ability to bring gallons of water and minerals up the side of the mountain through their trunks.” The upright shapes of this portion echo the tree trunks and branches visible through the fence behind them. The final part is at the top of the staircase, near the highest point in the park. The flowing greens and golds of “Tree Canopy” look like an extension of the leafy treetops behind it. Looking out from the top of mountain, you can see out across the small forest and into the urban landscape beyond, offering a rare and wonderful perspective on the city and its relationship to nature.

Haunting at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery

Any place that has a long history and a large population has its fair share of ghost stories, and New York City is no exception. The city is home to a wide range of haunted sites, each with a unique and terrifying story. St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, a historic Episcopal church on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, has the distinction of being haunted by one of New York’s oldest European ghosts. The church was originally built on the estate of Peter Stuyvesant, the last director general of New Netherland and New Amsterdam, which is what this area was called when it was under Dutch colonial control. Stuyvesant, sometimes called “Peg-Leg Pete” due to the fact that he had a wooden leg, is buried beneath St. Mark’s, and was reportedly a stern, short-tempered man. It is not surprising then, that “one of New York's earliest ghosts came back from the grave, so the story goes, to complain about noise.” According to local legend, in 1865, Stuyvesant had become displeased with the growth of the city disturbing his land and his peace. One night, the townspeople were awoken by the sound of the church bell ringing. They raced to the church and found a terrified sexton claiming that the ghost of the former Governor had chased him through the night. Upon examining the church, within which the bell was still ringing, the townsfolk found the door locked. When they finally got inside, they discovered that the bell’s rope had been cut off high in the air, too far up for anyone to reach. They searched the building for whoever had rung the bell, but the only thing they found was a length of rope sitting on top of Stuyvesant’s crypt. Since then, stories abound of Stuyvesant’s ghost lingering around New York’s most haunted church, and some say that you can hear him wandering around, the distinctive tapping of his wooden leg echoing through the building.